


Good Girl, Bad Boy

by LindsayBay



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, High School
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2018-11-19 01:33:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11302992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LindsayBay/pseuds/LindsayBay
Summary: 1980Chrissy, a girl from a religious home, is supposed to tutor high school football star Merle Dixon so he can pass the ASVAB and enlist in the army. She's also supposed to help keep him on the straight and narrow, but he may just lead her astray.2008Christine meets Merle Dixon again by chance. He is an ex-con, and she's a judge's wife.This is a multiple chapter fic. (Still in progress)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know that OCs aren't that popular, but I really wanted to write a 'Merle in high school' fic, which means everyone but the immediate Dixon family is an OC by necessity.
> 
> I haven't found anything that gives Merle's ago, so I just picked 1980 because a) it's the same era as 'Freaks and Geeks' and b) I have know people who were in high school during that era.

2008

 

The woman had the smooth, perfectly groomed appearance that only large expenditures of time and money can accomplish. Her age was north of thirty, but just how far north was impossible to determine. She marched along the edge of the highway in espadrilles that were inadequate to the task and a Lilli Pulitzer dress.

 

 A two-tone blue-gray truck pulled up beside her. "Y' alright, lady?"

 

 "I'm just fine," she said.

 

The old Ford truck paced her as she walked. "It's more than a hundred degrees out." 

 

"It's fine. I like the heat." She was sweating through her tastefully-applied makeup. 

 

"Chrissy? That you, girl?" 

 

The truck and the woman stopped at the same time. She squinted at the driver. "Merle?"

 

"Get in the truck, Chrissy. You're gonna get heatstroke."

 

For a moment, it looked like she was going to refuse. Opening the door, she said, "No one calls me Chrissy any more." She got in, trying and failing to find a seatbelt.

 

"Where you goin'?"

 

"Nowhere in particular." Christine stared straight ahead as Merle gave her a questioning look. 

 

Finally, Merle shrugged and started driving again. "Your husband sent me to county lock-up for three months."

 

"Yes, I know."

 

"You ever tell the Honorable Judge John McEntire 'bout us?"

 

"There was never any 'us'." 

 

"So that's how you're gonna play it, huh?"

............

 

1980

 

Chrissy couldn't figure out why she would be called into the counsellor's office at the same time as Merle Dixon. She'd never had much to do with him, nor did she want to. She'd seen him swaggering down the hall earlier, his uncut hair completely out of control and the tongues of his unlaced boots flapping, and she’d been  surprised that he was allowed back in school after his last trip to juvenile detention. 

 

But football was like religion in this town, and everyone knew that Merle Dixon could plow straight through a defensive line and knock down boys twice his size. Chrissy reckoned that he was powered by sheer orneryness. 

 

Mr. Johnson clapped his hands together. "I know you're wondering why you’re here, Miss Chrissy." She quickly glanced at Merle, who had his usual half-smirk on his face. "Mr. Dixon here plans on enlisting in the army when he graduates, and he needs to get his ASVAB scores up." Chrissy looked at Mr. Johnson blankly. "The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. I want you to tutor him."

 

"But the school year's nearly over."

 

"I need you to do it over the summer. He fell behind during his absence." Mr. Johnson smiled in a sharklike manner. "I know you're a good tutor. A smart girl like you, maybe going to be valedictorian, I think you'd be perfect for this."

 

Chrissy was just finishing her sophomore year, so valedictorian talk seemed a bit premature. Was this a message? A promise or a threat? Chrissy did desperately want to be valedictorian; it would help immensely in getting a scholarship to a decent college. 

 

"Well, Miss Chrissy? What do you say?"

 

"O--okay." Chrissy was never good at saying no to authority figures.

 

"Terrific!" Mr. Johnson clapped his hands again. "You can go, Dixon. I need to talk to Chrissy one on one." Merle left with a sarcastic salute, and Mr. Johnson scooched his chair closer to Chrissy. "I need you to keep him focused on studying for the ASVAB. I don't want him going back to juvie. We lost the championship last year because he was gone. Do your best to keep him out of trouble."

 

Chrissy frowned. She was supposed to babysit Merle?

 

"If you keep me happy, I have connections at some good schools. I could put in a good word for you. And you could write a nice essay for your college application about how you tutored an unfortunate boy from a troubled background."

 

This was flat-out bribery. And it was working.

...............

 

2008

 

Merle gave Christine a sideways glance. "You been drinkin'?"

 

Her laugh was devoid of humor. "Sadly, no. Stone cold sober."

 

Reaching down between the seats, he pulled out a flask and handed it to her. "Maybe you should start, then."

 

Christine unscrewed the top and took a swig, screwing up her face at the taste. "Ugh. Is this gasoline?"

 

"Close. My friend Al's moonshine."

 

She took another swallow. "Oh my goodness, this is like drinking fire." Merle took the flask and had a nip before handing it back. "Drinking and driving right in front of a judge's wife? Is that a smart life choice?"

 

Merle shrugged. "Smart life choices ain't my thing." He turned and smiled at Christine, who was tipping the flask to her mouth again. "Looks like they're not exactly your thing today, either. What makes a rich girl act this way? They run out of soy milk at Starbucks? The maid call in sick? Your little yappy dog won't wear the dress you bought it?"

 

"You still are an asshole, aren't you?" Christine was laughing, genuine laughter this time.

 

"The other PTA moms didn't like your cookies?"

 

Christine stopped laughing, her mouth going into a tight line. "I don't have any children." Her voice was chilly.

 

"Oh. Sorry."

 

They rode in silence for a while. Christine finished off the flask and dropped it on the floor. Closing her eyes, she put her hand out of the rolled-down window and let it move with the air currents. "You had kids, didn't you?" Her voice was a little wobbly.

 

"Yeah. Had three with Bambi after I got out of the army. Couple more with other women."

 

"Huh. You and Bambi. You two didn't stay together?"

 

"Naw. I left after she brained me with a cast iron skillet." Merle chewed his lower lip for a moment. "I came home right after basic training. Tried to find you, but no one would tell me where you were. Where'dya go?"

 

Christine let her head fall back against the seat and stared up at the ceiling of the truck's cab. "Does it even matter?"

.............

 

1980

 

"And you're actually going to do it?" Chrissy's best friend asked incredulously. "Look at him, he's a barbarian." Merle Dixon was roaming around the cafeteria and helping himself to whatever he wanted from other students' lunches. Sandwiches, candy, and fruit disappeared into the pockets of his army surplus pants. "And they just let him get away with it because he plays football!" Jill continued. "It's ridiculous."

 

"He's kind of cute," a girl named Charity ventured.

 

Jill sniffed. "You'd need to use a hedge trimmer on him to tell. Why is his hair like that? He looks like a tumbleweed. Why are you helping him, Chrissy?"

 

"It might help me with getting a scholarship. Daddy says he won't pay for college unless I go to Liberty U." Chrissy did not want to attend a university where her life would be as constrained as it was at home, and, outside of evangelical circles, a Liberty U diploma wasn't exactly highly esteemed. 

 

"Hmph. I'd rather go to Liberty," Jill said sourly. Merle snapped up a baggy full of potato chips from a kid in a Stars Wars shirt and funneled them all into his mouth, little bits of them flying out of his mouth as he chewed. "I'll pray for him."

 

Merle grabbed a carton of chocolate milk and chugged it. Then, as if he sensed Chrissy watching him, he turned and looked right at her. She felt a tiny electric shock. _ I never realized that his eyes were so blue _ , she thought. 

 

"Oh, no," Jill groaned, "he's coming over here."

 

"Hey, Laura Ingalls." Merle reached across the table and snatched Chrissy's apple. He took a bite out of it and winked at her. Chrissy blushed without really understanding why. 

..............

 

After lunch, Chrissy was checking her teeth for food in the bathroom mirror when she heard the dreaded  _ scuff-clomp, scuff-clomp _ of Bambi Kelley's ridiculous wooden-soled sandals. She had seen her take off those sandals and whip them at other girls' heads with surprising force. She hoped hard that Bambi just had to pee.

 

Bambi stopped just behind Chrissy and glared at her reflection. She was a tall, rawboned girl with bleached blonde hair lacquered into stiff wings. "Merle's my boyfriend."

 

"I know." Well, Chrissy knew that  _ sometimes _ she was Merle's girlfriend. Their relationship had more drama than the average soap opera. 

 

“Don’t be gettin’ no ideas about Merle.”

 

“I assure you, I am not interested in Merle that way at all. Not. At. All.”

 

Bambi narrowed her eyes. “S’pose you think he’s not good enough for you.” Chrissy walked quickly out of the bathroom, but was pursued by  _ scuff-clomp, scuff-clomp _ . “Stuck up bitch!” Chrissy suddenly felt like there was a target painted on the back of her head. 

 

“Hey, babe!” For a disorienting second, Chrissy thought Merle was talking to her, but he loped past her and grabbed Bambi around the waist, swinging her around. “Leave Laura Ingalls alone, she’s just gonna tutor me. You know you’re the only one for me.” The two started making out right in the middle of the hallway, Merle slipping a hand into one of Bambi’s back pockets. Chrissy found herself feeling oddly lonely as she watched them.

…………………...

 

2008

 

“Nothin’ matters and you’re goin’ nowhere. Nihilist Laura Ingalls.”

 

“Please, let’s not start with the Little House on the Prairie nonsense.”

 

“It’s been fun strollin’ down memory lane with you, Chrissy, but I got to meet with my parole officer soon. There someplace I can drop you off?”

 

“I live in Stonebrook Meadows.”

 

Merle gave a little huff of a laugh. “They even gonna let me drive through that gate?”

 

“If I’m with you, yes.”

 .................

The security guard at the Stonebrook Meadows gatehouse looked dubiously at the old Ford, “Everything okay there, Mrs. McEntire?”

 

“I’m fine, just a little car trouble. It’s fortunate that this old classmate of mine came along.”

 

“Alrighty, then.” He hit a button and the gate opened. 

 

“Jesus, look at this place,” Merle muttered as he drove past oversized houses and perfectly trimmed lawns big enough to land planes in. “This is some Stepford shit right here. Watch out or your husband will turn you into a fembot.”

 

“It’s not that bad.” Christine sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

 

“Which one’s yours? They all look alike.”

 

“Number twenty-five.”

 

Merle pulled into the horseshoe-shaped driveway, up by the front portico. “Looks like you did okay for yourself, Chrissy. Better than me.”

 

She stared at the house as if she’d never seen it before, then turned to Merle. Her eyes were wet. She opened her mouth, shut it again. She launched herself at him and kissed him, making a small sound when he wrapped his arms around her. The kiss deepened and she ran her hands all over him, like she was trying to memorize him. She pulled back and they locked gazes for a moment. 

 

Without a word, she slid out of the truck.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merle Dixon has his first tutoring session with Chrissy.

1980

 

“Hey, Daryl!” Merle quickly caught up with his younger brother outside of his school. “Got something for you. Your favorite.” He reached into a pants pocket and pulled out a Kit Kat bar. Daryl grinned, taking the candy and carefully tearing the paper. He snapped off one piece and chewed it open-mouthed as he put the rest in the pocket of his plaid shirt for later.

 

“Daryl, didn’t I tell you to wash your face before you went to school?” Merle demanded. He licked a finger and attempted to remove a smudge of dirt from his brother’s chin. Daryl squirmed and made a bleat of protest. “Ain’t no girls gonna like you if you go around lookin’ like Pigpen.”

 

“Don’t care ‘bout girls.”

 

“You do, too. You’re a _Dixon_. Here, I got dinner for you, too.” Merle took more things from his pockets: a plastic-wrapped sandwich, an orange, carrot sticks in a baggie, and a Twinkie.

“You’re gonna have to walk home alone. I have a thing. Let me know if anyone gives you any shit, okay? And brush your teeth, we ain’t got money for no dentist.”

.............

 

Chrissy sat up straight, ankles crossed primly as she looked at the notes she’d gotten from Mr. Johnson. “It says here you don’t need help with vocabulary and reading comprehension. Are you sure?”

 

Merle took the chair next to her and turned the back to face her, then straddled it backwards. One knee poked out through a hole in his pants. “You think just because I’m white trash, I can’t read?”

 

“No, I just--do you even read outside of school?”

 

“I read plenty. Not much else to do in juvie.”

 

“Like, comic books?”

 

Merle’s eyes narrowed. “Like, _book_ books. I read every James Michener book, and they’re big. I read _Sophie’s Choice_ . It was depressin’ but it had dirty parts. I read _The Thorn Birds_ even though I think it was written for old ladies.”

 

“Okay.” Chrissy reddened a little. She had a copy of _The Thorn Birds_ hidden under her mattress that she had read seven times, and she often daydreamed of having a tortured romance like that of Maggie and Father Ralph.

 

“You done condescendin’ to me?” Merle smirked at her look of surprise. “How’s that for vocabulary? I got another one for you. Pre--sump--tu--ous.”

 

Chrissy held her hands up in a pacifying gesture. “I’m sorry, alright? Can we just start over?”

 

“Sure.” 

 

“The notes say you need a little bit of help with verbal expression. You’re fine on mechanical stuff, which is good. I wouldn’t be much help there. What you need help the most with is math and science. Huh. Usually boys are better at that stuff than at reading.”

 

“And girls aren’t usually into _that stuff_. Sure you can tutor me, Laura Ingalls?” Merle leaned toward her over the chair back. 

 

“Why do you keep calling me that?”

 

Merle reached out and touched the collar of her Victorian style blouse, then tweaked a ruffle of her floral-print skirt; Chrissy reddened again at the feel of his fingers brushing against her. “You dress like you live in the Little House on the Prairie,” he said.

 

“This outfit is by Gunne Sax! It’s in style.”

 

“It woulda been in style a hundred years ago, too. Do you dress that way because you go to one of them churches where people roll on the floor and--ugguggittiuggittyblarrrr.” Merle lolled back, rolling his eyes up into his head and babbling like someone speaking in tongues. He was shushed by the librarian.

 

“I’m a Baptist, not a snake handler!”

 

“Too bad. Would like to see you handle a... snake. Hey, you know why Baptists don’t like sex? They think it leads to dancing.” Merle laughed and slapped the back of the chair, amused by his own wit.

 

“That’s--that’s not appropriate.” Chrissy realized that she had completely lost control of this session.

 

“You really don’t dance, right? Because you're a Baptist?”

 

“I’m not supposed to.”

 

“Not supposed to.” Merle bumped his chair closer to her and gave her an intent look. “That means you _do_ dance.”

 

_Lord, help me_. She was blushing so hard at this point that she was starting to sweat. “Sometimes. In my room. I have a little radio, but I’m only supposed to listen to the gospel station.”

 

“How come?”

 

“Rock and roll is demonic, and country western is all about drinking and adultery.”

 

Merle made a blatting noise with his lips. “Country is for old people, anyway. My _daddy_ listens to country,” he said with contempt.

 

Chrissy slumped down, her head in her hands. “We’re not going to study at all today, are we?”

 

He stood up, took a hair pick out of his back pocket, and started running it through his curls. “I gotta go. If I’m late Bambi’s gonna come lookin’, and you don’t want that. Hey, you think you could bake some cookies or somethin’ for tomorrow?”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2008  
> The immediate aftermath of Merle and Christine's meeting

2008

Christine stood in the middle of her kitchen, ignoring the way her housekeeper was frowning at her. She touched her fingers to her lips, half regretting the kiss and half wanting to kiss Merle again.

She hadn’t realized how much of herself she had let go numb over the decades until she’d received this morning’s revelation, the one that made her abandon her SUV in a strip mall parking lot. Of all the people that could have rescued her from certain heatstroke, it had to be _Merle Dixon_. Carefully constructed walls had been crumbling down. She had already been just one raw, exposed nerve before he pulled up next to her.

His voice, deeper than it had been, but still with that rasp to it, that same twang. His face stripped of the baby-softness she remembered, dented under the eyes and creased. The eyes as blue and long-lashed as they’d ever been. Hair gone gray and trimmed close to his scalp. Muscular arms exposed by a tee shirt with the sleeves torn off, and a knee sticking out of a tear in his jeans. That smile that she had never been able to forget, no matter how much denial she indulged in. He had looked so good to her.

Christine was seized by a wave of pure wanting. She wanted Merle. She wanted her youth back. She wanted to do it all over again. She wanted it to end differently. She wanted, she wanted, she _wanted ._  

Moving to the half-bath off of the kitchen, she splashed cool water on her face. She leaned against the sink and wiped the smeared mascara from beneath her eyes. Gazing at her reflection, she analyzed what Merle would have seen. What did he think of this hard carapace that she had built up over two decades, this external perfection that was the product of surgeons and dermatologists and personal trainers? 

Her phone rang, her her mother’s number popping up on the screen. Christine didn't answer. She knew this call by heart:  _Your father misses you, he loves you so much, he only ever wanted the best for you_. 

 Seconds later, her husband called. Christine stared at his number and considered just dropping her phone in the toilet. No, it was best to answer, otherwise he’d be bothering the housekeeper to find her. “What’s up?” she said with forced cheer. 

“Is everything alright? Sheriff Doolittle says he found your Escalade in the Dollar Tree parking lot with the doors unlocked and the keys still in the ignition. He says it’s a miracle it wasn’t stolen.” 

“It stalled on me. I think it was the heat. An old high school friend brought me home. I guess I forgot to lock it and take the keys in all the excitement.” 

“You need to be more careful, hon. Why were you even in that neighborhood? I know you don’t shop at dollar stores.” 

“Oh, you know, there was an accident and a detour and I just got lost.” The lies rolled off her tongue with surprising ease. 

“You need to learn how to use your GPS. Well, I guess everything turned out alright, anyway. Sheriff’s going to have a deputy drop the Escalade off for me.” 

Christine wondered if the deputy would look at what she had left in the front passenger seat.

…………

  
After meeting with his parole officer, Merle drove around aimlessly. He sure as hell didn’t want to go home. His encounter with Chrissy had left him restless and horny, and his mind kept going around and around like a hamster wheel. During one of his stints behind bars, he’d read a book on Bhuddism that said that suffering was caused by desire. He didn’t think that was true at all. Desire was easy to deal with. It was _thinking_ that hurt. 

Chrissy was beautiful now, but in a way that was almost frightening. Hard and shiny. Like a diamond. Or a knife. Her demeanor had been a deflecting surface, revealing nothing until the very end. That kiss. He touched his tongue to his lower lip as he recalled it, as if he could still taste her there. And her hands, fingers tracing his face and exploring under his shirt and running up his thighs. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so aroused. Too stunned to react when she had ended the kiss, he’d watched her disappear into her mansion. 

He should have made her stay. He should have fucked her right there. He should have forced her somehow to tell him why she had vanished, only to return with a husband fifteen years her senior. 

It had been two months after he’d been released from the brig that he’d seen her on the front page of the local news rag, standing next to a bespectacled man in a suit and tie. For the next couple of decades, the paper was the only place where he ever saw her face. Chrissy and Merle’s paths never crossed, not before today. It wasn’t surprising. Their lives were in different orbits. On the other hand, Merle had seen John McEntire’s face in courtrooms far too many times, first as the county’s prosecutor and then as a judge. Now there was talk of him running for congress. 

_Leaving was probably the best thing she ever did for herself_ , he thought. _I look like an old man and I have jack shit to show for my life. What the hell could I have ever given her? Goddamn, I need to stop thinking._  

He pulled the truck up to a cinderblock building with a Budweiser sign blinking in a tiny window. Inside, it was as dark as last call. The bartender put her hands on her hips and grimaced at Merle. “If you start another fight, you’re eighty-sixed, you hear me, Dixon?” 

He slid onto a barstool and gave the woman his best panty-dropping smile. “Aw, honey, you wouldn’t do that to your pal Merle, would ya?” 

He got a flat stare in return. “That only works on women you haven’t already slept with.” She put a shot glass on the bar and started pouring him some whiskey. 

“But we haven’t sle--” The look on her face would have scared away a lesser man. “Oh, I was just jokin’, honey!” 

“You don’t even remember my name,” she hissed as she walked toward the other end of the bar. 

It looked like it was time to find a new watering hole _._ He tossed back the whiskey, wondering if the bartender would ever be back to pour him another. Someone tuned the satellite radio onto a country station. 

_He said "I'll love you till I die", she told him "You'll forget in time"_  

This was not a good day for George Jones. 

Merle stood up and scanned the smoky room. There was a man alone in a corner with a flattened nose and jailhouse tattoos on his arms. Merle swaggered over to the man’s table and grabbed his beer. He tipped the glass up and started taking a long pull, only to be interrupted by the tattooed man grabbing the front of his shirt. “What the hell do you think you’re doin’?” the man demanded. Merle grinned and tossed the last of the beer in the other man’s face. 

The tattooed man let out a string of profanities and tried to hit Merle with an uppercut. Merle danced out of the way, then rammed his fist smack into the other man’s mouth, feeling lips split open under his knuckles, feeling blood spurt. 

“Goddamnit, Dixon!” the bartender shouted as the tattooed man leapt on top of Merle, toppling them both onto a table. 

The best cure for thinking, Merle had found, was action.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to 1980

1980

The Reverend and Mrs. Butler’s neat tract home was still fragrant from the cookies that Chrissy had baked for tomorrow’s tutoring session. She wondered if Merle liked snickerdoodles, then wondered why she wondered. From what she’d seen, he was as fussy about food as a garbage can. 

Chrissy could hear her parents’ voices coming from her father’s study, intense and low. They didn’t want her to know what they were discussing, but a couple of the radio stations that she listened to without their approval had news as well as music. A church in Tennessee that was affiliated with her father’s had erupted in scandal so sordid that it was a national story, one involving embezzlement, prostitutes, extortion, and who knew what else. Chrissy was pleased that it was distracting her parents so much.

Careful not to make noise, she slid a dresser drawer open and took out a plastic jar. Inside was a white cream that she dotted on the large, dark brown freckles that covered her cheeks and nose. Neither parent would approve of the use of fade cream. Her mother because, she insisted, Chrissy’s freckles only made her more beautiful. “You inherited them from your father, and I fell in love with his freckles first,” her mother had told her over and over again. Of course, her mother wasn’t the one who had been mocked for years by other kids asking her if she had stood too close behind a cow taking a shit. Her father, on the other hand, disapproved of vanity.

Chrissy hid the fade cream in her underwear drawer again. Leaning on her elbows, she surveyed her face in her dresser mirror, trying to imagine the freckles gone. Would people think she was pretty?  _ Does Merle think I’m pretty or ugly? _ She did her best to squash that rogue thought immediately. She moved her head up, down, side to side, checking all the angles. Smiling, pouting, narrowing and widening her eyes. Her face started to look strange to her, and she threw a scarf over the mirror so she wouldn't have to look at it any more.

Chrissy turned on her ball-shaped radio, spinning the dial until she found exactly what she was looking for: a slow, lushly romantic song. She stretched out on her bed with her arms spread, eyes half closed. 

_ Drowning in the sea of love _

_ Where everyone would love to drown _

It had to be some kind of sin, indulging in the sweet, melancholic, shapeless yearning this song evoked in her. It made her body feel heavy, like she was being pressed into her mattress. This was what she imagined being in love felt like: immobilization by the weight of emotion. Tingles traveled up her spine to her scalp. Goosebumps raised themselves on her arms.

_ I think I had met my match, he was singing _

_ And undoing, and undoing the laces _

_ Undoing the laces _

The study door opened, and Chrissy had to sit up quickly and snap her radio off. Her parents came in without knocking. Her mother looked mournful. “I have some bad news, honey. Your daddy is going to be in Tennessee most of the summer. There are people there who need his help.”

Chrissy’s mouth turned down and she squeezed her eyes until a little moisture came out of them. “Oh, daddy, I’m going to miss going fishing with you!” She was surprised at how sincere she sounded, because inside she was rejoicing. A whole summer without the Reverend. A whole summer of freedom.

…………..

“Order as many steaks as you want. You need the protein. You’ve gained some bulk, but I want those shoulders even bigger, Dixon,” Mr. Johnson exhorted. “Some of the Jackson High boys have turned into real monsters. You need to be able to match them.” 

Merle felt out of place in the steakhouse, which was the fanciest restaurant in the county. He could see well-groomed suburbanites side-eyeing his faded jeans with the shredded hole at mid-thigh and his battered boots. He carefully considered the menu, settling on two sirloin dinners with baked potatoes and green beans. 

Their waiter, as it turned out, was fan of local football. “You’re not in training right now,” he said with a wink as he set a glass of beer in front of Merle. “On the house.” 

The steak arrived sizzling. It was so tender that Merle barely had to touch it with his knife to cut it, and the flavor made him close his eyes in bliss. His mother, rest her soul, hadn’t been much of a cook. Her idea of a steak was a charred hunk of gristle. His father didn’t cook of, course; the old man seemed to subsist entirely on whiskey and spite. Merle tried to savor the steak slowly, but,  _ damn _ , he was hungry. He was always hungry. His plate was empty before he knew it.

“Can I get you anything else?” the waiter asked. 

“I guess my eyes are bigger than my stomach,” Merle said. “Can I take the rest home with me?” He honestly had no idea if that was acceptable. Maybe the kind of people that ate at places like this didn’t care about leftovers.

“Of course! I’ll box that up for you.”

“Can I get two slices of apple pie for later, too?” 

Mr. Johnson drove Merle home. He pulled his station wagon up in front of the Dixon trailer, where the only sign of life in the windows was a wavering blue light from the television. Merle sat for a moment, thinking up a strategy to get the food to Daryl without his father seeing.  "Night, Mr. Johnson."

"Hey, Dixon?"

"Yeah?"

"Here's a five. Use it to get a haircut. You look like a hippie."

 


	5. Chapter 5

1980

Daryl sat in the back of the cart as Merle pushed it through the grocery store. He carefully considered their options. The five dollars that Mr. Johnson had given him last night was almost enough for day-old bread, some cans of tuna that were on special, and store brand milk. Merle turned the cart toward the checkout lanes. He knew that each of the four lanes had a little tray of coins with a sticker that said, 'Need a penny, take a penny. Need two pennies, get a job.’ Merle scooped up the pennies from the three lanes that were closed. “You can’t do that!” the clerk at the last lane squawked. “And get that kid out the cart, he’s too big for that.”

Merle took the pennies from the last tray and stared at the clerk challengingly. She looked like she was going to say something, then she shut her mouth. She punched the prices into the register angrily and slammed the groceries into a bag. She was so busy being angry over a few cents that she completely missed seeing Daryl palm a Kit Kat bar. Merle had to bite the corner of his mouth to keep from smirking. 

It turned out that Merle still had three pennies left over after he paid. He gave the clerk a cheeky grin as he slipped them into his pants pocket.

…………

The sweet cookie smell wafting from underneath the plastic wrap was making Chrissy’s stomach rumble, but she had vowed to herself that she wouldn’t eat any. She wasn’t going to eat anything ever again if she could help it. She was on a diet.

At lunch today, she had heard the dreaded *scuff*clomp* *scuff*clomp*. Bambi and her flying monkeys were headed her way. Chrissy noticed that she was wearing a tee shirt with a glitter decal that said, of all things, ‘A touch of class’. The group stopped at the table right next to the one occupied by Chrissy and her friends. “Go away, dweebs,” Bambi told the sophomores that sat there.

“This has been our table all year,” one complained.

“Move or I’ll set your hair on fire.” Bambi pulled a lighter with a Jack Daniels logo out of her bra. The sophomores scurried away. Bambi’s friends sat down, but she just leaned against the end of the table, sticking her tiny rump into the air right in Chrissy’s line of sight. “You won’t believe what me and Merle did last night,” she said. Loudly, and at great length, she launched into a story about sneaking into the Holy Trinity Baptist Church’s cemetery and having sex.

“Ugh, that’s so sick!” Jill exclaimed. “My nana’s buried there!”

Chrissy supposed she should be upset that the cemetery for her father’s church was being used for fornication. She was certainly bothered by what she was hearing. But exactly why she was bothered was hard for her to define, and it was making her uncomfortable. Having Bambi’s bottom practically shoved in her face bothered her in a more identifiable way.

Rumor had it that Bambi got her jeans so tight by putting them in the dryer for five hours at a time, and that to get the zipper up she had to lay on her back and use a pair of pliers. All of the girls in Bambi’s clique made Chrissy feel anxious and insecure; they all seemed so much more knowing and sure of themselves then she was. But Bambi was the worst. She looked like a girl who would be romanced by Bo and Luke on ‘The Dukes of Hazzard’. Long legs, slim hips, concave stomach, and, yes, that miniscule butt. Chrissy was sure that the only parts of Bambi’s body that jiggled were her boobs, and that her thighs never rubbed together. Chrissy recalled the way that her own rear end, thighs and stomach wobbled when she ran in gym class and was seized with self-loathing. 

Feeling slightly sick, she had stuffed the remainder of her lunch back in its brown paper sack and thrown it away.

Now when Merle sat next to her in the library, turning the chair backwards again, the memory of the things she’d heard Bambi said made her blush. “You brought ‘em!” he said happily, pulling the plastic wrap off of the plate of cookies. He stuffed one in his mouth. “These are so good! You made ‘em yourself?” 

“Yes. Don’t let the librarian see them.”

He chewed up a few more. “Yum. I oughta marry you, Laura Ingalls.”

Chrissy flushed again. “Best not let Bambi hear you say that.”

He laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. She’d throw one of those stupid wooden shoes at my head.” He ate one more cookie. “I’m not real hungry right now, but can I take the rest of these home?”

“Sure.” Merle wrapped the remaining cookies in the plastic and stowed them away carefully. 

For the next half hour, Chrissy was able to keep him focused on an assessment of his science knowledge. Apparently, all it took to get Merle to cooperate was baked goods. 

But it didn’t last that long. About a quarter past four, his knees started to bounce up and down. “It’s Friday.”

“I know.”

“What’s a preacher’s daughter do on a Friday night? Churn butter? Make doilies?”

“There’s a going-away party for my daddy. He’s going to be gone all summer.”

“Damn, you’re lucky. Wish my daddy would go away somewhere. Anywhere.”

“I’m going to miss him,” Chrissy declared virtuously. 

By the way Merle was looking at her, she got the feeling that he knew she wasn’t being completely honest. “Uh huh. You ain’t gonna play while the cat’s away?”

This was a line of inquiry that Chrissy wanted to cut off. “Why do you speak like that? ‘Ain’t gonna’? You could speak properly if you tried.”

“ ‘Cause I ain’t tryin’ to be somethin’ I’m not.” He gave her a sly, slantwise look. “I ain’t some preacher’s daughter pretendin’ that she don’t wanna run a little wild.”

“I’m not--” 

“You should spend a Friday night with me and my friends, Laura Ingalls. We’d show you how to have fun twentieth century style.”

“We-well, I can’t tonight.”

Merle grinned. “That means you will some other night.” He stood up. “Gotta go. Gotta throw my li’l brother in a bathtub before he stinks up the whole neighborhood. Thanks again for the cookies.” He loped away.

Chrissy was left feeling as discombobulated as she had been yesterday. Being with Merle left her feeling restless and wound up. She sighed and stood up. She hid the paper plate that had been used for the cookies underneath a large potted plant, then headed for the new release shelf, hoping to find a Harlequin romance that she hadn’t already read.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merle-focused, both in 2008 and 1980.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains some abuse.

2008

“Dad, stop at the Dairy Queen. I wanna Blizzard.”

The Ford was waiting at a red light. Merle turned and gave his youngest child a look of disbelief. “I’m gonna reward you for getting kicked out of school?”

Dylan grinned at him cockily. “Come on, Dad. You know school’s a bunch of bullshit.”

“What do you plan on doing with your life?” Merle could hear how weary his voice sounded.

“Dunno. What do you plan on doing with yours?”

Merle could feel his jaw clenching. “My old man woulda cracked me one if I ever spoke to him like that.” The light changed and Merle hit the gas a bit harder than necessary.

“Grampa Dix is an asshole.” Dylan slouched down in his seat, knees braced against the dash. His light brown hair flopped over his eyes. “Come on, I really want one of those chocolate chip cookie dough thingies.” He popped Merle’s Motorhead tape out of the cassette player, tossed it on the floor, and started trying to find a radio station that he liked. “Get a CD player already. Christ.”

Lord, this boy could irritate him to no end. Dylan’s mother claimed it was because they were so much alike. She was in rehab right now. Dylan was staying with _her_ mother, but Gram had a VFW Ladies Auxiliary bake sale today, which left Merle to fetch Dylan from the office of an irate high school principal. “Flushing a cherry bomb, huh? How you payin’ for that?”

“I’ll just mow lawns,” Dylan said blithely.

The principal had insisted on showing Merle the damage: a urinal blown clean off the bathroom wall and water flooding the hallway. “Gonna be a whole lotta lawns.”

“Hey, this is where you turn for the DQ. Hey. Hey!”

Merle just kept driving in silence. When he pulled up in front of Gram’s house, Dylan jumped out without saying a word, not even bothering to shut the truck door. “Love you, too, jerkoff,” Merle called, laughing when Dylan flipped him off.

The boy was kind of a pain in the ass, but at least he still spoke to Merle. He had two adult children who had made it clear that they wanted nothing to do with him. His eldest had changed her name from Destiny to Diane and married a businessman in Atlanta, and the other cut off all contact after enlisting with the Marines. His youngest with Bambi was, as far as he knew, a fucking exotic dancer in Las Vegas. He had another daughter with a woman who lived in Florida; last time he’d seen her, five years ago, all she had talked about was how she didn’t eat meat. Dylan was as good as it got in Merle’s life.

He checked the time and saw that he had a couple of hours before he had to get to his shitty warehouse job. _If I was smart, I’d just go home and watch TV for a bit,_ he told himself, _but I’m a damn idiot._ He couldn’t stop himself. He had to do it again. He drove out to the nicer side of town, pulling onto a dirt road and parking his truck behind a tree. From there, he could see anyone leaving Stonebrook Meadows.

……………

1980

“Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God,” Bambi squealed as she climbed in, “I can’t believe Mr. Johnson gave you a truck!”

“Lent me a truck.” It was a ‘71 Chevy Blazer with dents and painted-on paneling. Far from pretty, but it drove and there was gas in the tank.

“Whatever. Oh my God! Oh my God!” She bounced up and down in the seat.

“Settle down. It’s a truck, not a check from Ed McMahon.”

“Can we go to the mall?”

“You know we ain’t allowed in there no more.” For which he was grateful. Being followed around by security while looking at a bunch of crap he couldn’t afford wasn’t Merle’s idea of fun. The last time he’d been to that hellpit of suburban zombie-dom, he’d cured his boredom by turning animals loose in the pet store until a security guard dislocated his damn arm.

“Oh, yeah.” Bambi slipped her sandals off and stuck her feet out the truck window, putting her head on Merle’s shoulder. “Don’t know why I’m banned. Ain’t my fault the cat ate a bunny.”

“You bit the security guard’s hand, remember? I think he had to get stitches. A rabies shot, too, probably.”

“Shut up, Merle Dixon.” She gave him a playful slap. At least, he thought it was supposed to be playful. It kind of stung. Then she launched into one of her monologues, a lengthy recitation of all the grievances of the day and how she dealt with them. A freshman boy stepped on her foot and she pushed him into a locker. The janitor gave her a dirty look so she smeared lip gloss all over the bathroom mirrors. The lady at the front desk of the women’s clinic was nasty when she went in for a pregnancy test and--

Merle hit the brakes and Bambi rolled face-first against the dash and landed on the floor. Horns blared behind them. “What. The. _Fuck_.”

“Jesus Christ, Merle!” Bambi crawled back onto the seat.

“Ain’t you been takin’ them pills?”

“Yeah, but you can still get--”

“God _damn_ it.”

“I mean, I’m probably not.”

“You told me I didn’t need to wear a rubber no more.”

“I’m pretty sure I’m not, okay?”

A man approached Merle’s window, obviously irate. “Get this piece of shit moving, son.”

Bambi launched herself toward the window, her knees digging painfully into Merle’s lap. “Fuck you, old man! You better get back in your car before my boyfriend kicks your ass!”

Merle pushed Bambi back into the passenger seat, which was a bit like wrestling a wildcat, and started the Blazer again. “Could you at least try to act normal?”

Bambi crossed her arms and legs and sulked. “Fuck you too, Merle.” She was mercifully silent for two whole minutes. “Would it be that bad?”

Merle shook a cigarette out of his pack of Marlboros with one hand while he drove. “What?” He stuck the cigarette between his lips and lit it.

“My cousin Amy got pregnant just before John enlisted. They have a house on base and she gets to shop at the PX.”

“Yeah, and everybody knows she got pregnant on purpose and that John hates her guts now. Last time he was here, he screwed three girls.”

“So you're just gonna leave me here in this shithole all by myself when you join the army?” she asked plaintively.

“Don’t even think about doin’ it, Bambi.” He turned down Bambi’s street and stopped in front of her house. Through the greasy picture window, he could see her mother sitting on the couch and drinking Boone’s Farm, like every night.

“We’re not doin’ anything tonight?”

“Nope.”

"But it's Friday night." Bambi took the cigarette out of his mouth and flicked it out a window.

“Hey! I wasn’t done with that.”

“Come on, baby. You know you want to.” Bambi started kissing on Merle and pawing at his crotch.

“I’m not in the mood.”

She laughed shrilly in his ear. “You’re a guy. You’re s’posed to always be in the mood.” She started undoing his belt buckle.

“No. I said no.” He put his hand over the zipper of his pants and she dug her long fingernails into the back of it hard enough to draw blood. “Fuck! What is wrong with you?” He shoved her hard. Bambi snatched up one of her sandals from the floor and clocked him on the jaw with it. Before he could recover, she was out of the truck and running to her front door. “We are _done_ , you crazy bitch! You hear me?” he shouted after her. He picked up the sandal she left behind and hurled it into the street, then ran it over with the truck.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Saturday night in 1980

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains abuse and self-harm.

1980

Saturday 4:00 PM

Merle was supine on a broken-down couch in the yard behind the trailer he called home. He scowled at the book in his hand: _The Amityville Horror_. “What a bunch of horse-shit,” he muttered just before he pitched it into a clump of weeds. He knew Daryl wouldn’t risk going in among burrs and burning nettles to get the book. Merle didn’t feel like having to deal with the nightmares that a story like that would surely cause his little brother.

It was a hot, steamy day, and Merle was wearing just a pair of cut-off jeans, a bandana around his head to keep his hair out of his eyes,  and his boots. He’d prefer to go barefoot, but his father had smashed who knew how many whiskey bottles back here. Without sitting up, he reached into the cardboard box he’d found sitting at the end of someone’s driveway on garbage day. Merle had learned a long time ago to never turn his nose up at freebies.

He pulled out a skinny book. A Harlequin romance with a picture of a dumb-looking nurse smiling up at some douche-bag doctor. Ugh. Who the hell read those things, anyway? There wasn’t even any sex in them. Into the weeds with it. The next one he pulled out was _Longarm and the Avenging Angels_ by Tabor Evans. Now, that was more like it, a western with lots of sex and violence. The book’s spine was broken in several places, and Merle knew that those marked the dirty parts.

“Can I read that one?” Daryl asked.

“Nuh uh. You’re too young.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Find a different one. There’s a whole box.”

“But I wanna read that one.”

“You only wanna read this one because I’m reading it.”

Daryl clicked his tongue and let out an exaggerated sigh, then began stirring up the books in the box. He pulled out one with a hot pink cover. “This one good?”

 _The Happy Hooker_? “Daryl, no.” Merle yanked it out of Daryl’s hand and threw it. He was careful to aim it away from the nettles so he could rescue it when Daryl wasn’t looking.

 

“Bye, Daddy.” Chrissy felt herself tearing up as she hugged her father. Whether it was because she was sincerely going to miss him, or because she felt guilty that she was glad he was leaving, she couldn’t say. Perhaps it was both.

“You two behave while I’m gone, alright?”

Chrissy looked over her father’s shoulder and saw her mother winking at her. “Of course we will, Daddy. I love you.”

“Love you too, pumpkin.” He climbed into his powder blue ‘76 Cadillac and drove away with a final wave.

 

Saturday 5:00 PM

The wind picked up and blew the smell of corn mash and burnt sugar through the trailer’s open windows. Will Dixon was firing up a new batch of moonshine.

Merle was in the bedroom he shared with Daryl, looking at his stash: a shoebox containing some apples, a baggie full of trail mix, a few slices of bread, two Twinkies, and a can of tuna. Enough for a decent supper, but tomorrow was going to be kind of rough unless he or Daryl had some luck hunting. And things were only going to get rougher once school let out. There used to be an old lady a few houses down who had been happy to feed Daryl regularly, but her family put her in a home last month.

“Yoooo hoooo. Wiiiiiiilll.”

Shit. That waitress from the truck stop was back. Merle poked the top of his head into the hallway. “He’s out in the shed.”

The woman was still pretty in a hard way, even with her leathery skin tight against her bones. Will Dixon was a world class asshole, but he had a way with women. “Merle, sweetie, how you doin’?” She sashayed right into his room. He let her hug him, and he was enveloped in an eye-watering cloud of cheap, lemony cologne. “Lookin’ so much like your daddy.”

Merle bit back a nasty comment. He hated being told that. Instead, he stretched his face into a facsimile of a smile. “I’m doin’ great. Except Daryl has head lice again, and I ain’t got any money for that shampoo. Think you could borrow me a few dollars?” The woman couldn’t get out of the trailer fast enough; she threw a ten dollar bill on the kitchen counter and slammed the screen door shut behind her.

Merle grinned and added the money to his stash. He took out the bread and tuna and hid the shoe box under a pile of dirty laundry.

 

Chrissy peeked in the overflowing grocery bag. “What’d you get?”

“Taco makings!” her mother answered.

“Have you ever made tacos before?”

“Of course not! You know your daddy only likes meat and potatoes. But when the cat’s away, the mice will play. Can you brown that hamburger, honey?”

 

Saturday 6:00 PM

Merle kept the Blazer parked behind his friend Marv’s garage. He couldn’t risk his father knowing of its existence. Will would crash it into a tree or sell it or have sex in it with one of his skanks. Merle slid behind the steering wheel and Marv sat shotgun. Merle picked a bumper sticker off of the dashboard and stuck it in Marv’s face; it said ‘Ass, gas or grass--nobody rides for free.’

“I’m low on funds right now,” Marv drawled. “Guess I’ll have to give you a handy.”

“Shit. I can give myself one of them. Blowjob or get out.”

“Is that a bottle some of that famous Dixon moonshine or are you just happy to see me?”

Merle held the bottle of clear liquid up. “Well, it ain’t water.”

 

Chrissy was sprawled on the family room couch, filled with self-disgust. She had tried to not eat very much, but her mother had looked so hurt when she stopped after just one taco. Now she felt overstuffed, slightly queasy, and fat. She could swear she could feel her butt inflating as she sat on it. Her mother turned the TV on to ‘Dance Fever’.  Chrissy was scandalized. “How do you even _know_ about this show?”

“Oh, I’ve seen it during girls’ night out. The dancers are amazing.”

Prancing women in revealing dresses, men in half-buttoned satin shirts, music with a throbbing beat; Daddy would turn purple if he knew this was sullying his Panasonic TV set. Her mother was right, though. The dancers were amazing. The men led the women, steering them, dipping them, lifting them above their heads. It reminded her of the sex scenes in some of the steamier romances she had read: the man pulls the woman to him and she allows him to mold her body as he pleases. The novels spoke of some vague ending to the act, with the women feeling their bodies turn into stars or waves crashing onto shore.

A couple was dancing to one of her favorite songs, a romantic disco duet. The man sang _I'm a lonely man living in a world of dreams/ I've got everything but the one thing that I really need._ And the woman replied _Come to me, I'll give you all the love you'll need._

Chrissy, like the other Baptist kids, hadn’t been allowed to take sex ed in school. Yesterday during lunch, she had known that Bambi had been talking about sex, but she hadn’t understood the terms used. What on earth did blowing have to do with it? All her mother had told her was that making love is a beautiful and sacred act meant only for marriage, that a girl’s virginity is the most precious gift that she can give her husband, and that a woman submits to her husband in the marital bed the way she submits to him in every other way. All these inchoate ideas swirled around in Chrissy’s head, combined with the strange jitteriness she been afflicted with for the past couple of days, and it all tangled up in the music. The female dancer’s body was pliant as the male dancer bent her to his will. _This must be what sex is like_ , she thought, _a dance where the man knows how to take the lead_. The music built, like a wave. An idea took root in her head that the mysterious ending to the act of love was like the feeling she got from the climax of a song, when the singer’s voice unexpectedly went up half an octave or the percussion section went crazy.

The dance was over, and the show’s host flirted cheesily with the female dancer. Chrissy glanced sideways at her mother, suddenly sure her thoughts of the few minutes must be visible on her face. She was starting to suspect that there was a point to her church’s prohibition against dancing.

 

Saturday 7:00 PM

Merle was leaning up against his truck, taking tiny, burning sips of moonshine straight from the bottle. Someone had their car radio cranked and Black Sabbath was echoing from the quarry walls.

_Oh no, here it comes again_

_Can't remember when we came so close to love before_

_Hold on, good things never last_

_Nothing's in the past, it always seems to come again_

_Again and again and again_

The rear window on the Blazer popped open and Daryl slid out. “What the hell? I told you to stay home. Ain’t no party for little kids.”

Daryl lifted his chin defiantly. “Ain’t no little kid. And Dad’s probably gonna have some lady over, anyway. Can’t stand hearing that shit through the wall.”

The shrimp had a point. Hearing Will’s dirty-talk was pretty horrifying. “Fine. Whatever.”

“Gimme some moonshine.”

“No. Ain’t havin’ you puke in my truck.”

Marv came back out from behind a tree, pulling up his zipper. “C’ mon, let’s circulate. I’m gonna get some tonight.”

“Some what?” Daryl asked.

It was the usual Saturday night in the quarry. Brush was piled high in the fire ring, ready to be lit when it got dark. The man known as Chester the Molester, a forty-six-year-old who bought booze for high schoolers in exchange for being allowed to hang out with them, was standing a little too close to an unsuspecting sophomore. “Stay away from him,” Merle told Daryl.

Girls leaned against cars like they were posing for _Seventeen Magazine_ in their summer clothes, their tiny, tight shorts in bright colors and candy-stripes. Free of school dress codes, they favored little tops with strings and ties and laces that made a boy think about undoing them. Merle grinned at several of them. The girls smiled back, but didn’t look at him for too long. They all still feared Bambi’s shoes. _It just ain’t fair_ , he thought as he eyed up a chesty girl in a shirt that laced all the way up the front with a thin yellow satin ribbon, tied into a bow right between her breasts. And that tall black-haired girl with legs right up to her neck. And that short girl in the dress that would probably fall all the way to the ground with the pull of one string. Merle was going to have to leave the state if he wanted to get laid again.

“If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me? Huh? Huh? Your lips look lonely. Would they like to meet mine? Awww, come on. I must be in heaven because I’m looking at an angel! No?”

“Jesus, Marv. You're an embarassment.” Well, at least Merle wouldn’t be suffering alone in his sex-free existence.

 

“Before I married the Reverend, I was quite the dancer. Can you believe it?” Chrissy’s mother burbled. “I went to every sock hop. Of course, once I got together with your real father, there weren’t too many places we could go dancing together.”

“Daddy’s my real father,” Chrissy said stiffly.

“Oh, you know what I mean, honey.” Her mother flapped a hand dismissively. “You should have seen him. So handsome, such a sharp dresser, and could he dance?” Her mother went to the console stereo and turned on the radio, tuning it to an oldies station.

_Well, I said come on over baby_

_We got chicken in the barn_

_Come on over baby_

_Really got the bull by the horn_

“I think I still remember a few of the steps.” Her mother kicked forward, kicked back, spun around. “Get up. I’ll show you.”

“Daddy’s head would explode if he saw us right now.”

“Good thing he’s not here, then. Now, loosen up your hips a little.”

 

Saturday 8:00 PM

 

Merle’s path was blocked by two of Bambi’s friends, a pair of girls that he could never tell apart. They were identical from the middle parts of their waist-length brown hair to the soles of their Dr. Scholl sandals. “So are you two named Jennifer and Jessica, or Jessifer and Jennica?” Merle asked. The moonshine had him a little fuzzy in the head.

“Bambi wants to talk to you,” said one of them. They flanked him and somehow steered him into a nature-made niche. There was only one way out, and it was blocked by Jessijenniferca.

Bambi was sitting on a log set against a rock outcropping, wearing those cut-offs of hers that were almost too short to be legal and a denim vest. She was looking up at him in a meek, coy manner. “Hey, baby.”trying to get him to look at her legs. He had made a vow to himself that this time, _this time_ , he wasn’t going to let her manipulate him into taking her back. He was going to think with the big head. 

“What do you want?” he said shortly. He tried to avoid looking at her as she shifted around, showing off her legs. He had made a vow to himself that this time, _this time_ , he wasn’t going to let her manipulate him into taking her back. He was going to think with the big head.

“The clinic called. About the test.”

Merle’s eyes snapped from the small patch of deep blue sky over her head to her face. “And you ain’t pregnant.”

She shook her head, a small, sly smile forming on her lips. “I am.”

It was like a punch in the gut. Merle bent double, put his hands on his knees, and tried to catch his breath. An arm snaked around his neck. “Don’t fuckin’ touch me,” he snarled.

“Aw, don’t be that way.” She started talking about all the girls she knew who’d gotten pregnant, and how they were doing great, just great. “I’ll have to drop out of school when I start showing, so I’m gonna miss out on most of senior year. But--”

Merle threw her arms off of him. “Shut! Up! Oh my fuckin’ God, just stop talkin’! All them girls, they’re on welfare now. Guess you will be, too, huh?”

“But--”

“I got _nothin_ ’. Me and my brother are huntin’ squirrel to keep from starvin’ and you think I can take care of a baby, too? What the hell is wrong with you? Are you really that dumb?”

Bambi sat back down on the log and started to sniffle. “Don’t you love me, Merle?”

“I fuckin’ hate you right now. Don’t even try to tell me you didn’t do this on purpose. Stupid bitch!” His voice sounded raw.

Bambi tipped her head up and it hit the rock wall behind her. _Thunk_ . She grabbed a handful of her hair and rammed her head on the stone again. _Thunk. Thunk thunk thunk_.

Merle shoved his way past those two ridiculous girls and staggered around the quarry. He’d lost his bottle of moonshine, but, the way his stomach was roiling, he didn’t want to drink anymore anyway. He leaned against a tree and vomited, getting it on his boots. “ _Shit_.”

“There really gonna be a baby?”

“Jesus. I forgot you was here, Daryl.”

“I can hunt more. Don’t want no baby to be hungry.”

Merle closed his eyes tight and pressed a fist against his forehead. He know he would break if he tried to speak.

 

While her mother ran a load of laundry in the basement, Chrissy snuck into her parents’ bathroom. She remembered overhearing a couple of cheerleaders talking about taking laxatives after eating too much, and she knew her dad usually had some Ex-Lax in the medicine cabinet.

 

Sunday morning 4:00 AM

 

Merle eased the trailer door open. He knew exactly where to step on the floor to avoid squeaky boards. Daryl was right behind him, silent as a cat. It wasn’t that Will Dixon cared if his sons stayed out all night, he just hated being woken up.

Merle barely had time to register the shadow in front of him before he was tripped. He hit the floor on his side and was hit hard in the solar plexus by a booted foot. The pain was paralyzing. All he could do was lay there helplessly as his father rammed a foot into his ribs, his thigh, his tailbone, his back. “Stealin’ moonshine, you little shit? You know that’s what keeps a roof over your head?”

“What’s going’ on, babe?” a woman called from Will’s bedroom.

“Nothin’ you need to concern yourself with, sugartits,” Will yelled. He was panting with exertion. “You gonna pay me back for that bottle, you hear me, boy?” He gave one last kick, then went back to his room.

Daryl crept out of the shadows and crouched next to Merle. Just sitting there next to him as Merle curled around the ache in his gut.

 

Between the twisting in her stomach and the fizzing in her brain, Chrissy hadn’t slept a wink. She got up and climbed onto her window seat, hugging her knees. Her eye was caught by a small, orange glow at the far end of the back yard: the lit end of a cigarette moving up, glowing brighter, fading, then going down. Her mother was smoking again. It was a habit that the Reverend forbade.

Four o’ clock in the morning was a strange, lonely time to be awake. Chrissy turned her radio on, spinning the dial back and forth until she found a song that fit her mood.

_Heading out this morning into the sun_

_Riding on the diamond waves, little darlin' one_

_Warm wind caress her_

_Her lover it seems_

_Oh, Annie_

_Dreamboat Annie my little ship of dreams_  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merle and Christine meet again in 2008

2008

Christine had no place that she needed to go. She just needed _ out _ .

She supposed that where she really needed to go was to her psychologist’s office. Dr. Myrck would probably give her a prescription for a pill that would slow down her racing thoughts, maybe even help her sleep. It was like the uncomfortable sensation of the feeling returning to a numb limb. But Christine didn’t want this surge of feeling blunted, no matter how discomfiting it was. She felt more alive than she had in decades.  

What Dr, Myrck had diagnosed as dysthymia, Christine had just considered to be just, well,  _ life _ . Existing as an adult, after the romanticism and illusions of youth had been stripped away. She did everything she was supposed to do. She worked out, went to social events with her husband, threw dinner parties that were attended by the local elite, volunteered with the Lionesses, and maintained both her home and her person meticulously. Someone who was depressed could never accomplish so much. So what if she she wasn’t particularly excited about her life? She was middle-aged now. Enthusiasm was for kids.

And then  _ bam _ .

She was in her Escalade, passing the Stonebrook Meadows gatehouse on her way out. She turned east, away from the high-end part of town. A gray-blue truck passed her on the solid yellow line, its engine rumbling, then crossed in front of her before pulling over onto the shoulder. She pulled over, too, and backed up. In her rear view mirror, she could see Merle leaning against the front of his truck, his elbows back on the hood. 

She got out and walked slowly toward him, the heels of her shoes catching in the cracks in the road. His position seemed deliberately provocative, thrusting his pelvis forward. “Hello, Merle.”

He let out a little huff of air and smiled tightly. “So formal.”

She looked him over. Given what she’d heard about him from her husband, she’d assumed he’d resemble a cross between his father and the photographs of meth addicts she’d seen by now: bloated belly over skinny legs, nose gone spongy, grey skin, face hollowed and sagging from missing teeth. But the man before her looked far better than any ex-con druggie had a right to. “What do you want?”

“You.” 

That short, sharp syllable shot through her, setting her nerves zinging. He stood up straight and started stalking toward her. The intensity in his eyes made it obvious what he was about to do. “Not here,” she said. “My neighbors…”

“You know where the Thunder Bird Motel is?”

“Sure.” It was part of a busy truck stop. It wasn’t likely that she’d meet anyone she knew there.

He got back into his truck without another word and burned rubber pulling back onto the highway.

Merle was already coming out of the motel office with a key card by the time Christine got there. She followed him to room #114. The moment he closed the door, he pushed her up against it, his mouth finding hers and taking it in a bruising kiss. Hands fumbled at clothes. Her La Perla panties were torn. The door rattled on its hinges as she let him take her right there, his hand gripping one of her thighs so tightly that she knew it would leave marks. This wasn’t at all like the polite couplings she’d had with her husband over the last twenty years. It wasn’t like when she and Merle had fooled around as teenagers, either. This frantic, animalistic act was something completely new to Christine. It was just what she needed, her mind shut off, her body in control. When she climaxed, she could have sworn that she saw lightning shimmering through her eyelids.

Breathing hard, he pressed his forehead against hers, one hand gripping her chin. “Don’t go yet,” he said hoarsely. He undressed her, unzipping her Donna Karan dress and placing it on a chair, unhooking her bra, apologizing for what he did to her underpants. Then he carried her to the bed. She watched as he stripped. He climbed onto the bed next to her and touched her face, rubbing her cheek with his thumb. “They’re not gone after all. It’s just make-up. Why do you hide your freckles? I always loved ‘em.” Merle started running one palm lightly all over her, slowly exploring the topography of her body. He paused at her lower stomach. “Thought you said you don’t have any kids.” 

Nothing her plastic surgeon or dermatologist had done could completely disguise the slight color difference, the texture. Her stretch marks were faint but still detectable. “I was pregnant. I didn’t get to be a mother.”

“What--”

Christine put a finger over Merle’s mouth. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

“Fine.”

“Kiss me,” she said. “Please.” And he did.

 

After making love for the second time, they both drowsed a while, waking up when the late afternoon sun slanted through the blinds. Christine considered going home, but she knew her husband had a poker game with the mayor, the district attorney, and a few city council members. Laying in Merle’s arms was a much more appealing prospect than a night alone in her mansion.

“I know you received a Bad Conduct Discharge from the army. You were in prison for a while. What else have you been up to?”

“That’s one hell of a question,” Merle said, laughing a little. “Been married and divorced three times. Tried to revive my old man’s moonshine business. Restore motorcycles on the side. Was a drummer for a death metal band for a while.”

Christine squinted up at him. “I don’t even know what that is.”

“Of course you don’t, Laura Ingalls. Bet you still listen to... what was that band? Oh yeah. Air Supply. Bet you got them on CD.” 

“Shut up!” Christine laughed, blushing. She did have an Air Supply greatest hits CD, actually. Not that she was going to let Merle know that. “What about your children?”

He heaved a sigh. “Christ. Well, Destiny, my oldest, married Joe Bill Hensley. Outta be a name you know. Changed her name to something a little more respectable.”

“My husband knows him, I think. Owns a big chunk of Atlanta?”

“That’s him. My second daughter joined the Marines. Randi. Think she’s an officer now. Misty, my last one with Bambi…” He went silent for a long moment. “She was always a wild child. Hard to believe, what with her being a Dixon, huh?” He sat up and rummaged through his jeans, getting out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, lighting up and taking a few puffs before speaking again. “Then there’s Amanda. Never really knew her. My youngest is Dylan.” He took another drag. “Looks just like Daryl did at fifteen. I’m goin’ straight for him. Tryin’ to be a good example. Don’t want him to end up bein’ a fuck-up. I got a shitty job at a warehouse and everything.” The setting sun limned him in deep pink-orange. Being nude didn’t diminish him in the least. It only seemed to emphasize how deeply, beautifully masculine he was. 

Christine’s phone rang. By the time she found her purse, it had stopped. She’d a missed call from her mother. Which reminded her that tonight she had a church event. “I have to go,” she said.

Merle grabbed her around the waist from behind. “But you’ll come back to me,” he rasped into her ear.

Yes. Yes. Yes.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to 1980. The fallout from Saturday night.

1980

As Merle was leaving for school Monday morning, a late model Monte Carlo pulled into the patch of dirt and ruts that served as the Dixon front yard. A man in a polo shirt and dress pants got out, nodding at Merle. Some flunkie sent to pick up a case of the famous Dixon moonshine so that his boss, a politician or business executive, could still feel like a good old boy. The man opened the passenger door, picking up an ancient wooden Coca Cola case filled with empty glass bottles that Will had made his sons pilfer from businesses that still had old-style soda vending machines. 

“Your old man washes these bottles before he refills them, right?” the man asked.

“We shore do! We got soap and runnin’ water, jus’ like ya fancy city folks! We even wear shoes sometimes!”

“I hate smartass kids,” the man muttered as he headed for the shed.

Of course Will didn’t bother to clean the bottles. He said the moonshine would kill any germs. 

As soon as he stepped on school grounds, Merle was apprehensive, wondering what stunt Bambi might try to pull. He wandered behind the football field to the corner where upperclassmen were allowed to smoke. The usual group of kids were there, minus one crazy shoe-wielding bitch. He gestured at Marv that he wanted a cigarette as he leaned against the chainlink fence. 

“Not too talkative, today, are you,” Marv said as he held out a pack of Marlboros.

“Nope.” Merle lit up, inhaled, blew the smoke out his nostrils as he wished he was puffing on something better than tobacco. He noticed Jennifer and Jessica looking at him, then looking at each other and giggling. “What?”

“Nooothing,” they sang simultaneously. 

“Nothin, my ass.” He frowned at them, not liking their identical braided hair, their identical shortie overalls, and, especially, their identical smirks. “The two of you are ridiculous. You’re not even related.”

“Poor little Merle!” said one.

“Poor little Merle!” the other echoed as they both started sauntering away.

Merle glanced at Marv, who shrugged and spread his hands. “Chicks, man.”

It followed him up and down the hallways, into first hour, second hour, third hour.  _ Poor little Merle _ . At lunch, a big-boobed girl whose pants he’d tried his best to get into last November accompanied the phrase with a gesture: a waggling of her pinkie finger. 

He turned and looked at Bambi, who was sitting at her usual table. She looked at him with red, puffy eyes and extended her middle finger. “Guess it wasn’t too small to knock you up, was it?” he shouted. The normal cafeteria noises went down in volume. “Oh, yeah. That’s right. I got one through the fucking goalposts.” He stalked toward the cafeteria doors, knocking a few lunch trays on the floor just for the satisfaction of making a mess. The principal was at the doors. “Better kick Bambi out, Mr. Walsh. I know you got a strict ‘no preggos’ rule in this school.” 

“Where are you going, Dixon? You’d better get back here!” Walsh bugled as Merle started heading down the hall to the front entrance. Merle kept going. He knew the football coaches would keep him out of trouble.

.............

“Hey.”

Chrissy looked up from her book. “Hey. I wasn’t sure you’d show up today.”

Merle sat the proper way on a chair for once. Sort of. His knees were approximately two feet away from each other. “You like the show at lunch?”

“It was ugly,” she blurted out. “Sorry.” But it was the truth. She’d felt sickened by it.

“Don’t know if I should even bother with getting tutored any more. Maybe I should just drop out of school and find a job in a town where no one’s ever heard of the Dixons.”

“Are you going to marry her?”

“I ain’t from your Little House on the Prairie world, Laura Ingalls,” he snapped. Stung, she looked down at her hands resting on the table top. “What you readin’?” He picked up her library book and looked at it in disgust. “A Harlequin romance? Bunch of bullshit. All that happily-ever-ever baloney.These books are gonna make you stupid.”

“Don’t take it out on me,” Chrissy said, her voice sounding a little shakier than she wanted. 

“What?”

“Don’t take it out on me. I know you’re having a bad time, but it’s not my fault.” She stared down at her hands harder, hunching her shoulders a bit.  He was quiet for a long time. Chrissy looked up. Merle had a subdued expression on his face that she’d never seen before.  “Do you even feel like studying today?”

“Not really.”

“So we won’t study.”

“What are we gonna do instead?” There was an incipient smirk playing on his lips, a hint of his usual self. “Get to know each other?” he drawled silkily. He folded his arms on the table, just inches from hers, and put his head on them, looking up at her through his lashes.

This was the side of Merle Dixon that made her blush, made her feel discombobulated, made her think about him at night when she was trying to fall asleep. She wanted to pull away from him and move closer at the same time. “I guess.”

“When you’re bein’ a bad Baptist and listenin’ to devil music in bed at night with the covers pulled up over your head, what do you listen to?” 

How did he guess that she did that? “I like Fleetwood Mac. And Elton John. Bette Midler,  _ The Rose _ . And Air Supply.” Merle’s mouth went curly. “What?”

“Nothin’. Those are… okay.” His eyebrows started quivering with suppressed  _ something _ . “Air Supply. That’s really cool.” 

Chrissy stared at him. “You’re laughing at me.”

He buried his face in his arms and made a strange snorting noise. “Uh uh.”

“So what do you listen to that’s so _ cool _ ?”

“Like, Led Zeppelin.”

“They worship the devil.”

Merle lifted his head just enough to peep over his arms. “What?”

“There was a man who came to my church. He played Stairway to Heaven backwards, and it says ‘here's to my sweet Satan’ and a bunch of other stuff. I heard it.”

“Guess I won’t even mention Black Sabbath.” He nudged her foot under the table. “You really believe all that shi--stuff?”

The touch of his foot on hers was oddly intimate, sending little thrills of sensation up her leg. “I  _ heard _ it.”

“I don’t believe any of it. It’s all made up.”

“You don’t believe in the devil?”

“Nope. Or God or unicorns or leprechauns or ghosts. Bunch of made up… garbage.”

Chrissy was shocked. She’d never met an atheist before. Her father claimed they were all Yankees and foreign communists. “Aren’t you afraid of going to Hell?”

“We’re already there, darlin’.”

This answer confused Chrissy, and the confusion made her angry. She pulled her foot away from his. “What do you mean by that?” she demanded, loud enough to be shushed by a librarian. “What a thing to say,” she whispered fiercely, “I want to know what that’s supposed to mean.”

“Nothin’. Don’t mean nothin’.”

“Then why say it?”

They were silent for a long moment. Chrissy stared up at the ceiling as she tried to pick apart the reasons she was suddenly so annoyed with him. She could see him sneaking peeks at her from the corner of his eye. 

“Southern rock,” he said suddenly.

“What?”

“I listen to southern rock. No devil stuff there. Allman Brothers. The Outlaws. Lynyrd Skynyrd.”

“I like the Allman Brothers. They have pretty songs.”

“ _Sweet Melissa_?”

“Yes. I love that one. And the one with no words.”

“ _Jessica_.” 

“Is that what it’s called? I really like that one.”

“Yeah. It’s nice.”

A different kind of silence. A good silence while they smiled at each other. “Do I get to ask you a question now?” Chrissy asked.

“Shoot.”

“What made you want to go into the army?”

“I watched _Kelly’s Heroes_ a lot. One of those stations out of Atlanta played it all the time.”

“Didn’t they rob a bank in that movie?”

“My great-great-great-grandpa Dixon robbed banks.”

“You’re making that up!”

“Uh uh. You can look it up in a book here. The Dixon-McPhee gang.  Nebuchadnezzar Dixon ended up in Georgia because he was wanted in Arizona.”

“He was named Nebuchadnezzar? No wonder he turned into a criminal.”

“Yeah, his parents must have hated him.” 

Chrissy found herself grinning so hard at Merle that her cheeks were getting a little sore, but she didn’t want to stop. The way he was grinning back was just too… what was the right word?  _ Beautiful _ , a little voice said in the back of her mind. 

“Good ol’  Nebuchadnezzar was the one that came up with the famous Dixon moonshine recipe, you know. We still make it the same way. Except we put it in Coke bottles instead of old medicine bottles. Now I get another question.” He furrowed his brow as he thought. “You ever just wear a jeans and tee shirt?”

Today, Chrissy was wearing a black and white Gunne Sax sundress with a short-sleeved blouse underneath to make it modest. It was cute and stylish, as far as she was concerned. “I don’t even have jeans. My father doesn’t approve of them on girls. Why?”

“Boys like girls in jeans,” he said in that silky tone, “Gives ‘em somethin’ nice to look at.”

This was going in a direction that was making her feel funny. “My turn. Why was everyone calling you ‘poor little Merle’ today?”

“Because when Bambi gets mad, she likes to make up rumors. Remember last year when she claimed that Becky Schmidt had a tail?”

“I have gym with Becky. She doesn’t have a tail.”

“Exactly. My turn. You ever kissed a boy?”

The extremely personal question distracted her from the fact that he didn’t really answer her. “No! Never! How’d you get that bruise on your face?” It was a few days old, purple turning to yellow on the edges.

“Bambi hit me with one of her stupid shoes.”

“What did you do to her?” Chrissy blurted.

Merle’s face went dark. “You think if I got hit, I must have deserved it?”

“Girls don’t just hit boys for nothing, do they?”

He stood up abruptly, knocking his chair over. “You don’t know shit!”

The librarian came storming through the stacks. “This is disgraceful behavior, but I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any more of a Dixon.” She rounded on Chrissy. “Don’t you bring him back in here.”

“She ain’t my goddamn monkey-keeper!” Merle stormed out of the library.

Chrissy blinked hard, not really understanding why her eyes were stinging with tears.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy tries to find Merle after his no good, very bad day by going to the Dixon home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains some racist language

Chrissy looked at the trailer with apprehension. To get to it, she only had to drive maybe five miles, but it seemed to exist in an entirely different universe than her picture-perfect home. She wasn't sure she should even be here, but Mr. Johnson had pulled her in for a little talk today, implying that her future valedictorian status might be in peril if she didn't get Merle to come back to school. And, to be honest, she was worried about him. She did her best to ignore the part of her that just wanted him to grin at her, to say those things to her that left her feeling discombobulated. The yard was half bald, half overgrown. She avoided looking at the moonshining shed, though she couldn’t help smelling the reek of corn mash. The trailer itself looked like it was slumping into the ground. The steps were oddly mushy under her feet. When she knocked, the door fell open a few inches.

"Hello? Merle?" She opened the door a little wider. "Anyone home?" Without thinking, she stepped inside; in her neighborhood, it was completely acceptable for neighbors to let themselves in.

The living room was dingy, dim behind ancient, dusty gingham curtains that would probably fall apart if they were washed. A black and white television with the sound turned off played a game show. She could hear a tinny transistor radio playing from another room.

_ So smile for a while and let's be jolly, love shouldn't be so melancholy _

_ Come along and share the good times while we can _

A movement from the left made her jump: a granny square afghan falling off the couch as a boy sat up. He was a scrawny little runt, shirtless, with dried mud on his feet. She got a glimpse of startlingly pretty eyes before he moved his long tangled hair to cover them. She hadn’t seen Daryl much since his mother died in that fire. "Oh, hey, Daryl. Remember me? My momma owns the Fashion Depot." The boy nodded. "Is Merle here?" A head shake. "Oh. He didn’t come to school today. Do you know where I might find him?" The boy shook his head again. "Oh."

At a loss for what to do next, Chrissy just stood there and looked around the room, as if she'd see a clue to Merle's whereabouts there. Daryl got up and circled around her like a curious but skittish cat. 

_ I beg your pardon I never promised you a rose garden _

_ Along with the sunshine there's gotta be a little rain sometime _

Her eyes were drawn toward a familiar black and white photograph: a girl with a perfect heart-shaped face and a huge blonde bouffant hairdo, wearing a dress as fluffy as a meringue. The bouquet of roses that she held obscured most of her winner's sash. Chrissy knew that photo. It hung in Patterson's Cafe, along with pictures of all the other local girls who had been crowned Miss Summer Daze since 1929.  "That's your momma?" The boy nodded. "Wow. She was so pretty." 

Creeping closer, Daryl said, "Merle's there, too."

"What?"

The boy tapped the girl's stomach. "In there. She always said she coulda been Miss Georgia if she hadn't let daddy knock her up."

"How old was she then?"

"Sixteen."

"Wow." _ The same age as me _ , she thought. Chrissy tried to square the smiling beauty queen in the photo with the Arlene Dixon she remembered haunting the clearance racks at the Fashion Depot. Arlene's face had been bloated and pouchy from drinking, the corners of her mouth permanently downturned. Her thinning hair had always been raked back into a straggly ponytail. "I'm sorry about your momma." The boy turned his head away from her and shrugged.

"What the hell, Daryl, why you let a Jehovah's Witness in?" The man who snarled those words was handsome but rapidly going to seed. His nose was spongy looking and his chin was starting to get wattled. He was barrel-chested, but his legs were going old-man skinny. Chrissy flushed deep red when she saw that he only had tighty-whities on.

"I'm not a Jehovah's Witness, I'm a Baptist."

"Whatever. Don't want none of your Jesus bullshit." He glared at her through bloodshot eyes and scratched at his sideburns. Chrissy saw that his knuckles were cut and bruised.

"I--I'm here for Merle."

The man looked at her hard, then got a smile on his face that didn't seem particularly friendly. "You his new girl? Huh. Looks like you got a touch of the tar brush. What are you, quadroon? Octoroon? Well, I tell my boys it's okay to fool around with your kind. Just don't be thinkin' you can trap him with a li’l tar-baby."

  
Chrissy's mouth fell open. She stood frozen for a moment. Hearing an adult, a  _ parent _ , speaking to her in this way left her stunned. She muttered something that even she didn't understand and dashed toward the door, not sure if she was imagining that Will Dixon was laughing at her.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2008
> 
> Another motel tryst

 

2008

Christine rolled down the driver’s side window of her SUV, letting the wind ruin the perfect, sleek hairstyle that had served as the helmet to her armor all those years as the wife of an ambitious man. By the time she got to the Thunderbird Motel, it would be a tangled mess, starting to curl at the ends. Switching on the satellite radio, she found a song she knew well.

_ I think I had met my match _

_ He was singing _

_ And undoing _

_ And undoing the laces _

_ Undoing the laces _

It reminded her of the days when she thought that falling in love would feel like a weight. Now, of course, she knew that it’s an unmooring. Casting off the ropes and dropping the ballast, not caring where the wind blows you. 

Christine McEntire: judge’s wife, member of the Junior League, renown society hostess, leader of the Bible Study For Homemakers program at Unity Baptist Church. 

Christine McEntire: liar, daughter who barely speaks to her father, adulteress. 

The Thunderbird’s tacky neon totem pole was visible from two blocks away. The sight of it made her heart speed up. Merle would be sprawled on the bed wearing just his boxers, smoking a Marlboro. He would stub out the cigarette and give her that slow grin, the same grin he'd had nearly thirty years ago. Every tryst is a palimpsest, the present overlaying the past. The skillful way he kisses now contrasting with his eager puppy-kisses of that long-ago summer. His bull-like body against hers, making her remember how whipcord thin he used to be. The years showing in his face, but his eyes still the same deep blue. His hands moving across her skin more slowly, not in a rush any more, knowing exactly when to be gentle and when to be rough. Every time she wrapped her legs around his hips, the memory of how much it hurt her first time flashed through her mind. 

She parked the Escalade around the corner of the Thunderbird so no one passing by on the highway would see it. She opened the door to their usual room. It was dark, the only light filtering through the curtains. Merle stubbed out his cigarette, got up off the bed, pulled her to him roughly, used her hair to tug her head back so he could put his lips over hers. 

Christine had been numb for so many years. Her body had become just a vehicle for her mind, a machine to be maintained properly but not truly inhabited. His hands and mouth turned her back to flesh and blood. She forgot all the complexities of her life, reverting to a blissful animal state as he laid her down on the bed.

................

Her husband had a guest lecturing gig this week in Dallas, and she had time to linger after the lovemaking was done. They lay together spoon-style. Merle ran his hand over her slowly, softly. When he got to the slightly-corrugated area of her lower stomach, his hand paused. “Who’s baby was it, Chrissy?” he asked.

“Doesn’t matter. I didn’t even get to see it.”

“It?”

“I don’t know if it was a boy or a girl. They thought it would be better if I didn’t know.”

“Who--”

She sat up. “I’m hungry. Let’s get pizza from Red’s. They’re still open, right?” She grabbed her iPhone and started looking up the Red’s Pizza number.

“Yeah, they’re open. But--”

“You still like the All-Meat Combo?” She dialed.

“Yeah.” That bull-dog expression on Merle’s face told her that he didn’t want to drop the subject.

“Hi, I’d like to place an order for delivery at the Thunderbird?”

After the call ended, Merle said, “Is that why you left town? A baby?” 

Christine stood up and grabbed her bra. “Maybe I should go.”

Merle got up on his knees and grabbed her by the hips, pulling her to him and burying his face in her stomach. “Don’t. I’ll stop. Okay? We’ll talk about other things.” He looked up at her. “I’ll tell you about when I was a drummer in a death metal band.” 

Christine eased herself back down onto the bed. “I still don’t even know what that is.”

“Heavy metal.”

“Like AC/DC?”

"It’s a whole lot faster and heavier and the singer sounds like--” Merle emitted a loud, guttural  _ bleeearrrrrgh _ noise. Christine yelped in surprise. “You like that, Chrissy? _Blaaaeeeearrrgh!_ ". 

“If you do that again, I’m hiding under the bed! That’s not even singing!” 

“We were called Blood Vomit.”

“You’re just making that up!”

“I didn’t pick the name. I wanted to call the band Syphilitic Whore.”

“No way can this be a true story.”

“We played at a club. Once. We were asked to never come back. Wasn’t my fault. I was a good drummer. Then Bambi set my drum kit on fire and that was that. Bambi was Blood Vomit’s Yoko Ono.”

“That’s such a tragic story.” Christine started giggling. 

“It really is.” 

When the pizza delivery came, Christine hid under the covers. “You’re answering the door in your underpants?” she asked as she peeped out at Merle.

“Gonna give them a thrill as well as a tip.”

That first salty, greasy bite of Red’s pizza, the first she’d had since she was a teenager, was divine. Pizza was not a part of the McEntire lifestyle. Her husband considered it to be trashy and Christine had to watch what she ate to maintain her figure. “Remember that time we went to Red’s and you dared your stupid friend Marv to snort red pepper flakes up his nose? I thought the poor kid was going to die.”

“Hey, I gave him a dollar to do it. He was compensated,” Merle replied. Christine grabbed another slice. Some of the toppings slid off, landing on her bare chest. Merle’s eyebrows jiggled. “I ain’t lettin’ that go to waste,” he said just before he dove on top of her. The rest of the pizza flipped onto the floor, but neither of them noticed until half an hour later.

......................

Merle watched Christine getting dressed. The expensive, elegantly sexy lingerie. The shift dress from Brooks Brothers. The  Hermès scarf tied at the neck. Tory Burch sandals. There was always a strange feeling of awkwardness at this moment; she was suddenly Christine McEntire again, not Merle's Chrissy. “I like when you stay. Wish we had more afternoons like this.” His mouth quirked up at one corner as he spoke. “Makes me feel like you ain’t just usin’ me for my body.” 

“I like it, too, but I have a lot of obligations.” She searched the bed sheets for one of her pearl earrings.

“What the hell do you do at your daddy’s church that takes up so much of your time?”

“It’s a business, Merle.”

“A racket, you mean. I see him on TV Sunday mornin’, askin’ for money. Maybe I should get into the preacher racket.” Christine said nothing. “Am I pissin’ you off talkin’ like this?”

“No.” She brushed out her hair and applied some coral lipstick. “It’s my family’s moonshine business.”

Merle slid out of the bed and started pulling his own clothes on. “Guess I can understand that. Better hope the bottom don’t drop out like it did for the moonshine.”

Christine grabbed her purse, then gave Merle a light kiss on the mouth. “Love you,” she said.

“You, too.” 

A light rain started as she walked to her Escalade. Now she had an excuse for the state of her hair, if her housekeeper asked. She caught her own glance in her rearview mirror.  _ I do love him _ , she realized as she looked into her dilated pupils. But she wasn’t sure if it was a continuation, something new, or just an echo of old emotions.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back to 1980

1980

Merle is in Marv’s garage, banging on an old set of red metal-flake drums. It’s a very satisfying method of working out his many frustrations. Atlanta’s 96-Rock is blasting on the stereo, Cream’s _White Room_. Merle hasn’t had a music lesson of any kind in his life, as things like that aren’t for the likes of the Dixons, but he likes listening to songs and figuring out how to bash along. This song is one of his favorites. Ginger Baker’s drums are forward in the mix, eclipsing the guitar. A slow, portentious roll at the beginning and then _bum-bum-bumbumbumbum_. Merle’s in the zone, that state where he’s no longer thinking, he’s just _being_. In the _now_ , past and the future forgotten. The only other times he’s able to reach this level is when he’s fucking or fighting or playing football. _Bum-bum-bumbumbumbum_.

“We should start a band,” Marv said as he noodled on his guitar.

The _now_  evaporated.

“Think about it,” Marv continued. “The guys in Kiss, they’re ugly as shit, but they get laid all the time. If we had a band, we could be swimming in pussy.”

Merle thwacked him drumsticks impatiently on his thigh. “Marv, you ain’t gonna get laid until you stop lettin’ your momma give you haircuts with a bowl, you Moe Howard-lookin’ dillhole.”

“Wow. You get mean when you’re not gettin’ any, Dixon. And your hair looks like an exploded Billo pad, by the way.”

“Gettin’ any what?” Daryl piped up.

“You made me miss the bridge, goddammit.” Merle tried to get into the song again, but it was over too soon. Bachman Turner Overdrive’s _Taking Care of Business_ was up next, which was a piece of crap on top of a crap sandwich. “Shit.”

Marv gave a low whistle. “Hey, I think we got our first groupie. Will you look at that.”

There was Chrissy Butler, waving at him shyly as she picked her way through the weeds. Her black hair was in two braids, making her look even more Laura Ingalls than usual. She was in one of those Little House on the Prairie outfits, too, a ruffled dress with Frye boots. Her face broke into a smile when he waved back. _She’s not for you_ , he told himself. He told himself that a lot.

“Look at those juicy tits,” Marv said.

“Have some fuckin’ respect,” Merle snapped. Marv gave him a gape-mouthed look. There was no denying that the girl had a nice pair. Merle often thought about them while jacking off in the shower in the morning. But hearing Marv talk about Chrissy like she was nothing more that a piece of meat made Merle want to shove a drumstick up his friend’s ass.

“Hey,” she said as she walked underneath the garage’s overhang. Her big gray eyes flicked down, then up, and she made a gesture like she was brushing back her hair, even though it was all pulled back.

“Hey,” Merle said, feeling his face stretch into a wide smile. He couldn't believe how happy he was to see her again. 

Marv’s eyebrows drew together. He seemed to be sensing things that he didn’t understand.

“Hey, Chrissy,” Daryl said shyly.

“Hey.” Chrissy tapped Daryl on the head as she walked past him.

“I hear you met my dad,” Merle said wryly. “I’m sorry. He didn't get weird with you, did he?”

She shrugged, made a face. “I hope you’re not mad I came here. I couldn’t find you anywhere else.”

“Nah. I ain’t mad.” Really, Chrissy should be the one that was mad. Merle had been a jerk to her a few days ago. But here she was, smiling at him like seeing him made her day. “Don’t know why you’d bother yourself comin’ after my sorry ass, though.”

“The school year’s almost over. You should try coming back for a few days. Even if you don’t, though, I’ll still tutor you this summer. I mean, you still want to join the army, don’t you?”

Merle stared up at the ceiling.”Hell. I don’t know.”

“Then--then we’ll just go on ahead as if you do. It’s easier to quit  than to catch up. Right?”

Merle moved his gaze down, looked into those wide gray eyes. “I guess. We can’t go back to the library, though.”

“That’s okay. There are other places we can go.” Her eyes cut to Marv, who was watching them closely. She reached into her purse, pulling out a pen and a notebook and scribbling down a phone number. “Call me, okay?”

“Okay.” Merle stuck the paper in the pocket of his army surplus shirt. He watched her walk away, liking the way her skirt moved over her rump.

“Hoo boy!” Marv leered. “She wants it!”

“I hear one more word out of you, I’m gonna find a new place to store your cheap-ass guitar.”


End file.
